User blog:Tadano Hitoshi/Ragtag Hustle Kancolle - Spring 2016 Event Edition
='All-Out War! Or Rather A Series of Unfortunate Events!'= ''(p/s: Commander''-san'' Harassed by the Abyssal Princesses! Signed, Choukai ) ''Hello, Choukai reporting. Usually our daily logs would be recorded by Commander-san himself, but as he seems to be very busy with matters outside the Naval base I have been appointed as his trustee regarding this. I don't know what and how he usually records our activities, but he says I can record it any way I like. So I will try my best! Since the start of the new season (Spring) we have been very busy being involved with our current operation now underway. We're seeing a high number of Abyssal Princesses deployed in the current operation. A total war, as the intelligence says... Well, that aside, it seems Commander-san is feeling very... grudgeful, for lack of a better wording, towards some of them... still, there's no sign of that one Abyssal Princess which forced him to admit defeat from last Summer. Looking at our new recruits for this season, I get the feeling she might be hiding under our noses... somehow. Anyway! Let us move on to a summary of the current operation for us, shall we? We just finished the operation though not without some notable near-misses, lucky strikes and the ever so dreaded situation where our arsenal ran out of ammunition stores. Without further ado! -- 'May 3 - Secure the Frontline Naval Superiority!' As usual, Commander-san's plan stays the same from the past few operations - our fleet is still on clean-up jobs. While I don't have problems with that, I do feel that some day we need to move on from the clean-up operations and push our best against the enemy's - but after looking at what's waiting for us in every battle and what has been stocked up in our arsenal, I fear that might not be possible. I feel a bit bad for Nagato-san and company, but I feel she also realizes this. On to the operation itself, there is nothing much to report. Atago nee-san leads the Surface Task Force for this first operation. Despite being Commander-san's first Heavy Cruiser, this is her actual first involvement in a major operation, and as the flagship at that. ... Naturally, she's very happy to be assigned to such a role after being here longer than any of us Heavy Cruisers, longer than even Ashigara-san. Except two withdrawals, the operation ended successfully. -- 'May 3 - Land the Engineer Corps!' It's just the second operation for this so-called "all-out war" and we're already facing a wall... So much that we had to lag behind a bit further due to the setbacks. I went out once for a sortie to the area involved with the operation, but Commander-san then decided to pull me and Ashigara-san back and sent back Mogami-san and Tone-san for the operations. ... Having attack seaplanes must be nice... anyway! That's not the point. We finished our operation here without much incident after falling back a bit. -- 'May 3 - Construct a Front-line Air Base!' After much difficulty trying to complete our second mission, we quickly moved on to the third - a transport mission. Thankfully, it is not as difficult as I've initially feared. At least not like the previous operations we've had before. Thanks to this, we managed to complete it in a very short period of time. Kamikaze-san joins us as well as U-511 who we picked up somewhere along the way. From my understanding, Yuu-chan (as she requested to be called)'s unique equipment would have saved us a lot from our terrible luck with attempting to sink the Supply Depot Princess during our previous operation. Now that she is here, her equipment will prove valuable for the subsequent operations - which I am already not feeling good about... -- 'May 3 - Take-off! Land-based Air Force!' For this operation, we were soon joined by an additional front to assist us in the front line - land-based aircraft! Joining us in this operation was Bismarck-san, being her maiden operation, however as I witnessed from the second fleet I feel we're not doing much - particularly because Kongou-san, Kirishima-san, Chitose-san and Chiyoda-san were doing much of the heavy lifting. We soon traded places with the three torpedo cruisers in the fleet for devastating torpedo strikes. Again, in this operation, we see ourselves facing Battleship Princess again - a dreaded, in various meanings of it, enemy in our books. ... For some reason, they (apparently there's not only one of them) are very, very fond of our Commander-san. Commander-san doesn't seem to reciprocate them, and thus they're always in our "Sink at all costs" list... not really. As long as it's enough to make them give up chase it'll be all right... I guess? Recently a diagram detailing on how Heavy Cruiser Princess looks like has been released by the General Headquarters. I must say, the illustrations are cute! It's too bad she had to be an enemy, though. ... And these shoes... err, I shouldn't be talking about that. Either way, she seems to be really horrified to see many, many torpedoes heading towards her - again. -- 'May 5 - Intermission - Retrieval of A Certain Air Defense Destroyer' On this day, while gathering intelligence to formulate our next strategy, Commander-san announced another operation independent of our current involvement in this major operation - a search patrol. Our target: a certain air defense destroyer. This particular destroyer had been one of Commander's past regrets since he first became an Admiral for our fleet. Seeking to help Commander-san overcome his past regret, we began our operation in a frantic search for her... "I am Teruzuki, the second ship of Akizuki-class Anti-air Destroyer! As with Akizuki-neesan, it is a great honor to be in your care!" ... And so we managed to find her among a fleet of Abyssals. Though, I can't help but have a funny feeling about this... starting from the point of her condition as reported when she was found by the fleet tasked for the mission. It's very strange to see a shipgirl not assigned to any naval base appearing in such a place, as if she was a stray cat. Though I will have to put aside these strange feelings and focus on the next mission I'll soon find myself in... -- 'May 6 - Intermission - From A Certain Viewpoint' ????: "Uuugghhh!!! ... Ah... haaaa... haaa... headache... I'm sweating... my heart is beating so fast... haaaaa... haaa... A... Admiral..." (Moments later) ????: "Aaaaaahhhhh!!!" (Even more moments later) ????: "... Ugh... haaa... haaa... damn it, what is it with me... where am I!? ... This is... his smell is here... could it be... ugh!!! M-my body is heating up... haaa... what is this... ugh! Haaaa....!!!" -- 'May 7 - Off the Northern Pacific Abyssal Central Anchorage' After a day of break from the operation, we decided to go straight ahead to strike deeper into Abyssal territory. We went here despite recommendations to capture an additional air base for ourselves, but Commander-san seems to be really keen on starting this operation as soon as possible. I think I know why... I won't divulge on the reason here though. But looking at the statistics of this operation we've had so far, I don't feel good looking at it either. Commander-san is getting angry, but not with us... I and Ashigara-san have no excuses for letting the enemy flagship slip away behind her Supply Depot Princess escort, though. After much struggling we decided to attack some enemy fleets thought to be holding the key towards the enemy flagship's ridiculous ability to withstand our attacks. I've heard reports of extremely destructive airstrikes but we never repeated the other Admirals' achievements to that end, but Akagi-san on her end did an excellent job on crippling the enemy enough for us to sink her. With some tries after attacking these fleets (apparently one of them was formerly the Henderson Airfield), we managed to destroy her... I wonder what if the entirety of the Mobile Force sailed here? Would we be able to pull off Tora! Tora! Tora! like back then? It was during our sorties for this operation we find ourselves running out of ammunition a few times over. In the end despite my mistakes earlier I managed to finish the enemy flagship off. ... Commander-san's embrace of joy surprised me, though, I never thought he would do that. Even though he snapped out of his ecstasy and apologized to me later, I don't think much of it - rather, I'd like it if he can embrace me a bit longer... err, don't get me wrong! It's just that as an Admiral Commander-san's really lacking on skinships. Too much "skinship" is not good either but Commander is on the other side of the scale, as in too little. ... Maybe one of these days I should get some skinship from him on my own initiative. P/S: During one of our sorties here, we met yet another bane of Commander-san's existence - not unlike Battleship Princess - in the form of Abyssal Kag-- sorry. I mean, Aircraft Carrier Princess. Commander-san first met her during the second-last operation of the Summer Operation, and apparently like the Battleship Princess she is also somehow very fond of him, though not as annoying. We had to rely on Maya to completely silence her - but well, Maya isn't exactly the serious, hardworking type despite her amazing anti-air capabilities, so... there are instances where the Aircraft Carrier Princess's planes managed to slip by and disabled our fleet. ... I'm not going to mention how she also got to touch Commander-san rather inappropriately, though. She looks a bit sorry, though - not that Commander-san is very kind to her either. -- 'Intermission 2 - Another View - Heat' My vision is feeling blurry. My body feels so hot. My heart is beating so fast. I don't feel like I'm myself right now. My mind is full of Admiral for some reason. ... Admiral? ... Haaa... fuuu... wait... ... Is that me in the mirror...? What... am... I...? ... Ugh...!! ............ ............ NOW I REMEMBER I REMEMBER EVERYTHING "Of course. I really wanted to meet you, you know?" ADMIRAL... ADMIRAL...!!!' -- 'May 12 - Beyond the Surging Sea' This is it. The operation to end all operations we've gone through since the past week. ... Or it would've gone that way had we captured the new Henderson airbase. I get the feeling at some point we're going to return to the southern islands to do that. Also, is it just me or is one of our new recruits behaving strangely towards Commander-san? Recently I've noticed she has been looking at him with some sort of longing eyes. Or rather, her stare is giving me the chills. It is a mix of yearning and that of an animal looking at prey. I don't know what it is but her stare feels somewhat ghastly. It's as if it was the Abyss itself. I wonder what is it I'm reading from her eyes... Anyway! At first we intended to scout the area, but somehow downing the damaged Central Princess was not much of an effort compared to going all out attacking her last time. This time we have some new friends joining us - even more airstrikes from the land and the sea - all we needed to do was just landing the killing blow. Here, both the Battleship Princess and Aircraft Carrier Princess attempt to tag-team in getting their hands on Commander-san, but of course we're not letting that happen. ... I should apologize to Commander-san for saying this, but he was a very nice distraction for these two. Also everyone gets to see the normally quiet and stoic Commander make some funny noises and facial expressions, they're somewhat cute! ... Ehem. Italia-san, joining us for the operation, did good with clearing the distractions, and Ashigara-san did well in keeping one more distraction away, so it's between me and the Central Princess now. ... Actually, one tap was all I needed to bid her farewell on her return to the netherworld, but for the sake of being safe it was a double tap. Commander-san hugged me again for my success, even though it was Ashigara-san who did the most devastating damage - even though it wasn't the enemy flagship. I wonder if Commander-san will hug her too if it was her who gave the killing blow? Anyway, the Admiral sure feels softer than I thought, despite himself packing quite the punch as a normal human... wait, no! No! That's not what I mean! But I guess I can understand why Atago-nee is very pissed she isn't getting any attention as the first ever heavy cruiser to arrive at this base. If I was in her place I think I would feel the same. And from this operation we got two new recruits in our roster: Iowa-san and Harukaze-san. It's also the first time I ever saw Yamato-san looking a bit disconcerted upon sight of Commander-san greeting Iowa-san, though. She's usually very calm and collected and as far as relations with Commander-san is concerned, she has been wooing him for a while though I don't really think Commander-san reciprocates that... he's a bit too easy to woo over with food, though, but his aversion to fine dining is the one thing that's keeping him from biting Yamato-san's baits... What's surprising everyone even more is that apparently Iowa and Commander-san seem to know each other. The really... um, curious ones got into an uproar, demanding Commander-san to explain how he met her. Turns out during one of the periods Commander-san was gone he got summoned by his... umm, "master?" I think he meant his teacher. He was to go to the United States and visit a certain museum and that's when he encountered her. -- 'May 16 - Aerial Extermination Battle of Rabaul' I get the feeling the one encounter we're about to have for this operation will explain a lot of things regarding how Zara-san ended up nearby Hokkaido waters. But to end up on the other side of the globe while looking for a lost sister shipgirl is... kind of amazing, in various ways. As we oversee the operation we've had quite a few setbacks - though not as horrible as our first encounter with the Central Princess. It's really hard to just bring two aviation cruisers and four destroyers and tell them to destroy an air base, and the air base has quite a horrible combination of air and surface defense - there are at least two battleships waiting for our sortie fleet upon contact. Nevertheless, the squadron led by Ayanami-chan managed to push their way through and destroyed the enemy air base despite a tough opposition. Though what waited for us at the end of it all was strange - a shipgirl who claims to be from Italy. She calls herself Pola - if I recall this right, Zara-san did mention her name before. ... The drinkers of the naval base are so going to have an even wilder late night party with this new recruit... Commander-san, good luck in keeping them all in check. That said, though, it's time for the celebration of the end of operations! Choukai, signing off! -- ='After story'= Admiral: "How did the updates on the journal go for you?" Choukai: "Um, well, this is my first time being tasked to do what you usually do so I might be doing a few mistakes... also there were some bits where I summarized due to running out of time, still, I guess I'm pretty late?" Admiral: "No, it's all right. I had to be outstation for quite an extended period of time so I didn't really have time to look at it much earlier before." Choukai: "I-I see..." "Hey! What are you two doing over there! Come here and let us enjoy some drinks~!" '' ''"Can't you call them out a little bit softer!? The Ninety-Niners are not going to be happy if you let that out!" Admiral: "Well then, I guess we shouldn't linger around too much here... Again, thanks for your good work out there." Choukai (smiling): "Yes... it's my pleasure working with you, Commander-san. " -- ''Spring 2016 - MISSION ACCOMPLISHED' Category:Blog posts